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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I get you, im not necessarily saying you "can't" have combat skill and threat coexist- im just saying the standard design of how aggro works (enemies have a consistent way of positioning themselves toward the tank) detracts from combat skill in the situations when aggro is active. So you can still have a lot of skill in combat otherwise, but in those situations it detracts from that, in favor of managing threat to retain that aggro. This is just simply because rather than you having to reposition to counter the postioning of the enemy, they position themselved in a predictable manner when the aggro happens (generally speaking)- so you don't really have to reposition or do a lot of these skills that you normally would have to do if you weren't manipulating the AI, compared to the alternative of having tools to counter/adapt to a situation the AI creates. Things like using movement to get in between the enemy and dps, or knocking the enemy away from the team, then having to reposition your team's formation, etc., rather than getting aggro and having the AI do all the work for you. These are all ways where you can "be the target and have control over the battlefield" but in a more engaging way (imo) than simply managing AI manipulation, compared to managing threat in those situations.
It is that way now, since the tank nerf.
Before the nerf, you had to worry about single target threat, aoe threat. DPS had cooldowns to manage their own threat, rogues could reduce threat of an ally or increase threat of the tank. Healers spamming overheals would pull off a tank no matter how good the tank was.
Then there was the nerf. Now DPS just do their rotations and dont stand in fire. The tank can do a couple damage combos on stuff and then go afk in between mechanics once he has things where he wants them.
FF14 is an example of a game that had the perfect amount of complexity as a MMO, but because it was too hard for the RPG fanbase that the IP brought with it, every expansion reduces more and more complexity for every role.
Ashes is a new universe, very likely the majority of people coming here is expecting to come into a MMO, not a single player game.
I am hoping we are presented with a next gen MMO, with good gameplay systems, not watered down repeat content that is in every other game, only slap Ashes artwork on top of it. We deserve better than that, and Intrepid has the passion and vision to bring it to us also.
If the tank is ok compared to the npc levels we fight, then I have no reason to be concerned.
Else the moment such a full heal is cast will be important.
Can also be that either the tank or the healer dies and then the rest of the team. I have no problem if the team fails this way 30 sec later.
I am saying:
1. Make it reasonable, Hard content has a hard time maintaining and regaining threat. But if you do it properly and 90% of the moves are done right. You shouldn't lose agro.
2. Introduce more mechanics. Threat mechanic shouldnt be the only thing going for a tank. Have blocking mechanics, mitigation mechanisms, and survival staying alive mechanics.
Example:
- Blocking at the right time in Valheim. Which if you do it right, it's rewarding not only in entertainment but you prevented more dmg or even causing stagger. If done wrong then you get smacked hard.
- Smite has tons and tons of mitigation mechanics (ice walls, stone walls, giving allys shields etc..) Which is awesome if done right you just blocked some one from escaping or doing dmg. If done wrong then you just blocked your team from doing dmg or running away.
- Survival Mechanics. Boosting your armor but doing less dmg. Or boosting armor but going slower etc..
I don't know what games it is you are playing, or what content in those games, but this seems like a niche issue within those games and that content.
Every game I have played has had many top end encounters where the tank has to reposition the mob, for various reasons.
Again, I think your issue here is with the design of a specific game, or a specific type of content. If you are only playing low to mid tier content - even if across many games - you won't come across advanced mechanics like this.
Yeah it is more of a niche issue as you said. I understand and agree that this issue can be mitigated depending on how the specific game handles aggro/threat- but I am talking more from a "best case scenario" and design philosphy, based on my preferences rather than referencing specific games' versions of threat management- in which case I personally would rather double down on situational awareness/adaptation skill-checks, instead of detracting from that through aggro/threat management (even if it only detracts to a minor extent and the system is handled/designed well in its own right). So depending on how Ashes takes threat management it could either be a major or minor issue for me, but my feedback is that I would still like to see an improvement in that regard based on my preferences.
When I say "detracts from it", im referring to the best possible implementation of a "CC" style aggro, due to the inherent implications of how that affects positioning/spacial awareness/timing skill-checks in those situations, compared to more "movement and counterplay heavy" systems that don't allow for AI manipulation
Situational awareness is - at least in my opinion - entirely about preventing unwanted adds. You maintain an awareness of your surrounding in order to prevent this from happening.
This means the determining factors for it are how many mobs there are in the are, what their respawn is, how many of them roam, and how long their aggro range is. These are all factors that are 100% determined by the content designer, not the class or combat system designer.
The moment a mob is identified as becoming an unwanted add, situational awareness is over and it is now time to take action. Sure, threat management comes in to play now, but situational awareness stops when threat management starts (in relation to these adds).
I agree situational awareness should be an important skill for a tank (or a CC class, who would take over this role from a tank if present), I just don't understand how it relates at all to threat management. From what I can see, altering threat management will have literally zero impact on the importance of situational awareness.
I meant situational awareness in terms of the combat skills are i was referring too- So yeah threat management can still require situational awareness- I should have said "I personally would rather double down on skill-checks relating to more combat oriented skills like positioning/spacial awareness/timing/etc. rather than potentially detract from those things by implementing AI manipulation CC skills"- i thought that was implied when put into the context of my point, but I may have worded it confusingly.
I agree that there should be more to tanking than just threat, but in my experience getting rid of threat management as an active mechanic isn't done to make tanking or the group experience more complicated or in-depth in other ways, it's just done to simplify and dumb down content.
This was even suggested by the OP and the people in this thread. They don't want to get rid of threat to let some deeper mechanic flourish, they want to get rid of threat so they can go ham on damage dealing without having to worry about pulling aggro.
The following is an attempt to work out the apparent disconnect here, I am trying to understand what it is you are talking about.
Every game that I have played has essentially had the same threat system, a basic outline of that system is as follows;
Mobs have a list of entities that have generated hate towards them, and attack the entity at the top of that list.
That's it. That is the end of the system.
From there though, there are a lot of small nuances. Games differentiate how much hate various activities gain, and add in various situations. Some games have it set so that heals and buffs generate a lot more hate than others, where as other games have it so that damage generates more hate.
Some games go even further, and have it so that different mob types gain different amounts of hate for different types of damage, and in some cases healing from classes that are religious based generates more hate than the same amount of healing from classes that are nature based.
In most games, tanks have some damage abilities, some buffs and debuffs, and occasionally some heals (especially self heals). However, they also have abilities that directly increase hate (commonly referred to as taunts).
Some games tune this whole system and it's nuances so that tanking is easy, while some tune it so that holding the attention of a mob can be very difficult, and requires real and actual skill. Whether a game goes for one or the other of these is literally an overarching game design decision - the lead developer (or, management, more likely) have decided if they want the game to be easy, or to be hard.
As to your specific comments on "AI manipulation skills" and CC type threat management, I have to assume one of two things.
First, either you are talking about games where the design is for it to be dead easy. The tank gains the attention of the mob, and it is almost impossible for them to lose it. If this is what you are actually talking about, I completely agree - I don't want this for Ashes, as Ashes is stated to be a game with actual difficulty.
The second thing I could see you meaning are tank abilities that force your target to target you for a short duration. These abilities are actually CC abilities, not a direct part of threat management. If the game has a good mob AI, mobs will still look for ways to attack the player at the top of their hate list, even if they have to target a different player (non-targeted AoE's as an example). Due to this, it can at times be worse to use such an ability, and a good tank should know when to use it and when to not use it (misuse will wipe a group or raid).
Now, if I am off the mark as to what it is you are talking about, feel free to let me know.
However, with the games I have played, the concepts you are talking about don't make a whole lot of sense other than the above. Maybe you are talking about games with totally different threat systems - I honestly don't know.
Excuse me? I did not advocate dumbing the game down. Dont put words in my mouth. I clearly described that anything threat does could just be programmed as part of the fight as a mechanic.
I know that I didnt do the best job when typing up the OP but it's not entirely my fault either that people are taking the worst case scenarios as proof that a game without threat management would be boring and easy.
Do you think elden ring cares about threat management when there are multiple characters? No, because the boss has a variety of skills that it can use that make the fights challenging to deal with. Elden ring might not be an mmo so let's use ff14. There are plenty of fights in that game that do not use "threat" outside of tanks swapping that are both challenging and fun. What I mean here is the tanks doing their normal proper rotations cannot lose aggro.
The paint sniffers that say ff14 does not have challenging combat have not played the end game/challenge mode content and should not be taken as an authority on it. It's as simple as that.
This scenario is a result of game design decisions. The developers decided that is what they want. Since we know FFXIV really doesn't want players being as good as they can be, the fact that they make the limiting factor of DPS classes the ability of tanks to hold aggro shouldn't be a surprise.
However, this is not a factor in every game with the same basic threat management system, but with different developer management, and thus different overarching game design decisions.
Put another way, games that limit DPS players due to tanks will limit DPS due to tanks regardless of what threat system they use, because that is a top end decision, and the threat management system is a result of that decision - not the other way around.
I see what you want to point out there but that was an example of how it could be seen either way. Not me declaring that one was better than the other. Again, sorry for not being more clear.
Thanks for clarfying the difference between various implementations. My knowledge revolves more around game design philosophies, based on analysis of games i've heard about/seen gameplay of/played myself- so sometimes I can be talking about something that may be misunderstood by somebody that actually played the games and who use different terminolgies/perspectives. This seems to be one of those cases, as I don't have much experience with mmos as far as actually playing them, but am fully aware of how systems work and interact with each other, and how similar systems feel when implemented within other game genres- so when I refer to threat management/aggro my understanding of that type of system is mainly based on my observations of how that generally is implemented, which generally what I have seen is a tank ability that creates a "CC" type effect that manipulates the AI into attacking the tank, causing the enemy to take the action and engage the tank, rather than the tank engaging the enemy, so-
This is more in line with what I am referring too based on what i've seen described as drawing aggro/threat management systems. Based on what I've seen generally managing threat revolves around a tank using abilities that cause the enemy to target the tank- in which case if you can force the enemy AI to reposition themselves rather than adapt your positioning to the enemy, those are the situations I am more referring too, due to that specific form of CC doing all the work for you, rather than having to work more for it in order to reap some kind of benefit. This kind of aggro system just comes acrossed as low risk-high reward to me.
So after thinking about less of a CC heavy type of aggro and thinking of it more in terms of your outline:
Too me it has the same effect but just less exaggerated. It seems like it would be more engaging to just always have the enemy prioritize the dps, similar to how a real player would, and the tank has to do what he can to interfere with that (through combat tactics, rather than threat). That would require more adaptation than simply changing the target's priorities, which would remove some of those elements through simply having the AI just target the tank- which would then mean less chasing the enemy around to interfere with their tactics. I feel that I would enjoy countering the enemies tactics in order to protect my team, more than I would enjoy trying to "persuade" the enemy to attack me instead.
I understand you can have both, but inherently they kind of conflict with each other even if to a minor extent. So just like we agreed on, its kind of a nuanced thing, but in terms of direction and feedback goes, its just my preference to focus on the gameplay I find more engaging.
I suppose if the threat management/aggro system never consisted of actually forcing the AI to take a certain position, such as "taunting them to get into the face of the tank"- and they are still dynamic/free to use different movement/combat strategies and had complex behavior trees even when the tank gained aggro- then I would be fine with that sort of threat management system, as that would be fun even when the tank is the target, rather than having to rely on the fun stemming from situations where your dps teammates are the target and you are trying to interfere. So i could be fine with that sort of implementation I suppose.
There is a little give and take in that regard from a design philosophy standpoint- so if it were implemented in that way, im not sure which I would prefer without playing it and feeling the difference, too nuanced to really get a cold hard opinion on.
I think we should both simply agree that you can't really get a feel of a game from watching gameplay footage. This is ESPECIALLY true if you don't have an extensive background in that genre.
This is what you think you have seen - not what you have actually seen. CC abilities like what you think you have seen aren't really a thing. What you have seen was a threat system functioning properly, probably backed by a skilled tank and a group or raid full of players that know what they are doing. To you (an uninformed bystander), it may look like a CC effect, when in fact it is just many skilled players working in concert.
I do have to ask a question here though;
You claim the tank is using an ability on the target that forces the target to engage the tank, rather than the tank having to engage the target.
Was not that first ability that the tank used the tank engaging the target? In other words, you are perfectly fine with the system as it has been present in most MMO's for 20+ years.
Threat management doesn't force mobs to take a specific position. Positioning mobs is a separate and distinct role that tanks have to perform in most mid and top tier content. Sure, it is a task that can only be performed after the tank has attention of the mob, but it is it's own task.
if you are watching a good tank, you may well mistake these individual tasks as being one and the same (they are often both performed in seconds - the tank gains threat, positions the mob and then continues to build more threat).
I find your way of looking at threat very distorted from what good threat systems looks like.
A tank should lose aggro in certain scenarios!
Against Bosses with mechanics that revolve around threat
(Like Randomly gaining/losing random players threat points or shufflying threat points around)
Monsters/Bosses resistent to threat generation
Threat management in no way should be 100% the tanks responsability, it should be a group effort, the threat system should be tied not only to how well the tank performs but how well the GROUP peforms, not necessarily in the sense of DDs and Healers having to hold back on damage/heals, but by giving them skills that revolve around threat, like threat points transference and threat points reductions or increases of party members.
Aren't we all sinners?
Are you enjoying yourself when the tank can't hold aggro and you pull threat off the target causing a wipe?
Is it fun when the dps doesn't know what a threat dump or management is and you cannot keep the boss or mobs from killing them, causing a wipe?
Does it make you ecstatic when the healer throws a bunch of heals over time on the tank before an aoe pull, causing the healer to get aggro before the tank can position and build threat on the enemies?
There are many, many people that play this genre that still don't know how to or care to do things properly. When the tank doesn't have an absolute advantage on threat generation Groups cannot function. Any form of pug group is instantly worse because of threat management when it is not heavily balanced for tanks to hold threat.
Lets say you have 40 people, 3 tanks. Do you want to roll the dice and hope that 39 of those other people in your raid know how to manage threat, or would you rather roll 3 times?
At the end of the day A tank holding aggro is -the- bare minimum, and the most important parts are positioning and staying alive. In my system as long as a tank uses their abilities they shouldn't have to worry about threat. Their main worries would be using cooldowns properly, positioning properly, making sure to pick up adds that spawn or path into the area, and knowing when to swap with other tanks in the group if mechanics need them to.
"Sorry you are going to have to explain to me why the LACK OF potential for a creature or boss to turn on and kill a teammate, causing the run to fail, is fun. I don't care if you feel cool maintaining threat. Im talking about when threat management fails."
"Are you enjoying yourself when the tank can ALWAYS hold aggro AND NEVER cause a wipe?"
I hope you are able to see how our sources of fun differ,
you like stability/predictability, perfect order and stagnation...
I like unpredictability, imperfect order and constant need for adaptability.
Once again your vision is too blind in this regard where you simple don't want people to have responsability, threat management is but a system, what if the same people can't manage other systems of their role aand cause wipes?
An MMORPG is essentialy a social game where you need other people and other people need you, if people simply doesn't meet your skill level you either try to teach them of finf other people who meet your skill level.
At the end of the day A tank holding aggro with the help of their group using their abilities properly they shouldn't have to worry about wiping. They should also worry about using cooldowns properly, positioning properly, making sure to pick up adds that spawn or path into the area, and knowing when to swap with other tanks in the group if mechanics need them to.
Aren't we all sinners?
Aren't we all sinners?
That's only your preference based off of what games you've played.
You're putting a full stop on what you think I and others enjoy, I came to an mmo to fight some good people and monsters, I didn't come here so that only THE TANK can 1 on 1 engage with every good looking monster and perhaps have "omega" sturn control over pvp while as any other class I'm fighting some crummy ass internal battle with my cooldowns, dodging some aoe rings on the floor and defeating pathetic adds that I would never write home about.
You have very little ability to determine what is fun for a wide audience and you have to bare heavily in mind that with the mmorpg's you've played and loved that most of its audience is only interested in completing the story and content and have little passion for fully immersing themselves in the gameplay as a whole, especially at the end stages.
Ashe's and many Korean based mmo's rely on many multiplayer aspects happening besides just simply playing co-op in PvE instancing. Try hard to heavy reflect on this.
Yeah once it becomes nuanced enough I would have to get an actual feel for it. Generally i'm able to be objective enough to decipher causes/effects and unravel how systems function/interact fundamentally, without really needing to play, just from a design perspective- This converation is kind of an example of that process, because I can only go off what i've seen and heard which has provided me with a lot of conflicting info on this topic, so im open to any clarification you provide. I also have enough experience with different systems to know what my preferences are and how to achieve them from a design standpoint, but like I said when it becomes super nuanced like what we are discussing then yeah I don't mind admitting that I would need to play it to know for sure.
Fair enough thanks for clarifying.
Yes that would be an example of that, so under my original premise there would be a focus on that kind of gameplay (hense my "doubling down" comment) rather than implementing any kind of system that would detract from that in favor of some other form of management. If its only to the degree in which you are saying it is, in terms of simply switching between tank/dps without causing positional affects, then I would be willing to compromise to that degree.
For that specific iteration of the system (which it sounds like you are saying is standard), yes I would be okay with that.
re: ff14
Who says FF14 doesnt have challenging content? No one here has said that, so now your the one putting words in peoples mouths.
I've cleared every ultimate while it was current content, the criterion savage mode, also I'm not that far off from clearing the newly released ultimate either. Pretty sure I can be taken as an authority when I say tanking in ff14 is braindead compared to what it used to be before the nerf. I mean that specifically as the tanking part of the game, not the solving mechanics part of the game, so if you reply to this, don't strawman my argument, Address what the topic is, which is -TANKING in ff14-, and not -encounter mechanics- in ff14.
FF14 Tanking Today in a nutshell
Tank swap needed? Other tank presses provoke to Instagrab agro, and I press shirk to dump some threat to him.
Big tank damage incoming? Press a mitigation button, oh hey these things last for a long time, so I can actually usually get both the big tank buster, and the raidwide coming after it in the same cooldown.
Raid wide damage incoming? Press a groupwide mitigation button.
I have agro? I will stand absolutely still, and if I must move for some mechanic, I will do everything possible to either not move the boss or let it turn even slightly, failing that I will ensure boss moves such that others loss of uptime is minimized.
Today high end tanking is reduced just DPS optimization after the encounter timeline is known. Those mitigation skills I talked about above are solved by spreadsheet, so that the healers dont have to use any GCDs to heal, and spend the entire encounter doing dps and using off GCD to top up the group and tank. If you are curious about it maybe you can look at the balance discord sometime to see the spreadsheeting going on there since PLD rotation doesnt fall on a nice 60s rotation like all the rest of the jobs either. Its all about damage, and very little else. The more challenging part, is making sure the boss stays absolutely stationary for as long as possible, for the melee dps to be able to stand on that sweet spot between flank and back just perfectly so they dont miss positional damage boosts. (Which also have been nerfed a lot)
re: tanking
Ever since the tank nerf, the DPS never has a single chance to ever pull threat from the tank, ever. Tank threat generation is so far beyond anything a dps, or even healer spamming overheals forever could possibly generate. The tank has to DIE for someone else to take threat, and even if the tank dies, threat is instantly regained and then once again, no risk of ever being lost, even with dps mid encounter after ramping up to max intensity dps with against a resurrected tank that has weakness.
That is not at all what it was like before the nerf. Back when the game still had threat to think about, the DPS could, and WOULD pull from the tank if they went ham, and all they had to do to NOT pull threat, was literally pay attention to the threat meter which was built in to the party window, and use threat limitation mechanics (Diversion) or a threat dump (Lucid Dreaming).
(offtopic, there was a period of time for BLU only content stuff, when Lucid Dreaming was the only way to drop threat, before the introduction of BLU's "tank stance", that those encounters were actually really hard to control because there was no real way to manage threat other than use your MP management wisely, which was also Lucid Dreaming. It was actually a lot of fun, a lot of planning and counting autoattacks was happening to solve those)
re: ashes
TLDR: I dont want another game where fights are on a strict scripted timeline, where tanks dont have to think about what they are doing, and dps can just stare at hotbars and execute optimal dps rotations. I want to have to pay attention and be forced to be flexible based on changing encounter conditions, one of those conditions ought to be threat management. Even if the solution is simple such as press threat dumps.
I want encounters where maybe you want a dps to grab, hold, and kite an add because the tanks are too busy with some giant dragon. If the threat mechanic is reduced to "tank presses taunts", then we can NEVER do that.
Threat mechanics allow for more interesting encounter development and game design. I cannot understand, and you have yet to describe why you want to simplify the game, other than you just want dps to go ham all the time. (Which is a silly argument, since you can just give threat mechanics to dps to reduce threat gen, as described above regarding FF14 pre tank nerf)
@Taerrik you did a great job breaking down how FF14 simplified threat, and why people might want something different.
I don't think one design choice is objectively better than the other, they are just different. Some people like managing something like threat, while others don't. Between this thread and the dev discussion, I think the majority of the ashes community likes the idea of threat.
I think the market for modern MMOs is moving away from complicated threat mechanics, as seen in FF14. Ashes can be different, and that's why the devs are asking their community, to figure out if there is a desire for threat mechanics.
Definitely agree that tanking should be more to it than just holding aggro, imo aggro should even be VERY basic part of tanking.
Could not agree more that those perfect blocks in Valhaim feels super good. Standing in front of a big boi and just waiting for him to do the next smack is intimidating but rewarding when you sucessfully block or dodge a hit.
It would be awsome if tanking would focus more on perfect blocks, taking damage for an ally in some way, staggering/knocking down, interupting, dodging/rolling, buffing the dps and just more of a focus on staying alive than managing some threat as your saying.
So, which is the best mmo out there right now?
Throne and Liberty starts the final test soon.
I hope will end up good too.